Chapter 318: Burned To Ashes
The relaxed atmosphere caused by the death of Shaozuka Yoshio and his group lasted less than half an hour.
This news was like dropping a piece of ice into a pot of boiling oil; not only did it fail to calm the battlefield, but it instead stirred up even more intense and chaotic boiling.
The Japanese and puppet troops, having lost unified command, did not collapse or surrender as expected.
The severance of communications and the paralysis of the command system instead scattered these tens of thousands of soldiers into hundreds of independent combat groups based on squads or small teams.
They were like a wasp nest that had been poked, having lost their queen yet becoming even more frenzied and deadly.
Relying on the familiar streets, ruined buildings, and preset fortifications inside Taiyuan City, they fought independently, launching suicidal attacks with a nearly mad posture against any Allied forces entering their line of sight.
In the north of the city, a Sherman tank had just used its 75mm main gun to blast down a two-story building serving as a machine gun fire point and was preparing to continue advancing.
Suddenly, from a narrow alley beside it, three Japanese soldiers clutching explosive packs roared as they charged out!
The coaxial machine gun on the tank and the Browning M2 on the turret roared in unison, instantly shredding the two leading Japanese soldiers into minced meat, with blood mist and severed limbs splattering everywhere.
But the last Japanese soldier, seizing the momentary opportunity created by his comrades’ lives, lunged to the tank’s side and fiercely pulled the fuse.
“Boom!”
The violent explosion blew off a section of the tank’s track, leaving the entire vehicle tilted and immobilized in place. Although the crew was unharmed, this steel behemoth had lost its mobility and could only become a fixed fire point.
Meanwhile, on the frontline handled by the Eighth Route Army and the Jin-Sui Army at the other end of the city, the fighting was even more primitive and bloody.
Without heavy tanks to lead the way, they could only rely on flesh and blood to engage the enemies hiding behind broken walls and ruins in room-to-room contests.
The explosions of grenades, the dull thuds of bayonets piercing flesh, and the dying screams rose and fell on every street, forming a brutal scene.
“Report to all officers!”
A communications staff officer, drenched in sweat, entered the command post. “The Eighth Route Army’s 2nd Regiment’s offensive has been blocked in the western commercial district. The Japs have turned the department store into a massive fortress with at least three hundred Japanese inside and extremely dense firepower. Two leading Sherman tanks have already been destroyed!”
“Report! The Eighth Route Army’s 772nd Regiment has suffered heavy casualties in the old city district. The Japanese are using tunnels and ruins for counterattacks; their street fighting experience is extremely rich!”
“Report! The Jin-Sui Army is requesting artillery support! They’re pinned down near the train station and unable to advance!”
One bad report after another came in, making the atmosphere in the command post heavy once more.
Pi Ruoyu’s brows furrowed tightly. He stared at the blue arrows on the sand table representing their own forces, which had stalled without advancing, his face extremely grim.
Su Yaoyang listened to all the reports; the smile on his face had long vanished, replaced by a sheet of icy calm. He walked to the large map, his gaze sweeping over the entire Taiyuan City.
“A fight of cornered beasts, huh…”
He murmured to himself, his finger lightly tapping the red mark representing the commercial district on the map.
“Since they like guarding this broken city so much, let them turn to ashes with it.”
He turned around, his gaze coldly fixed on Pi Ruoyu.
“Send a telegram to Cheng Rufeng. I don’t care what method he uses; in half an hour, I want to see the entire western commercial district burning. Use incendiary bombs to turn it into a sea of fire.”
Department store, third floor.
Tanaka Ken’s field of view was compressed into the cold, crosshair-etched scope of his Type 97 sniper rifle.
In his sight, a militia machine gunner was hiding behind a destroyed truck, trying to set up his heavy machine gun.
He was a very young soldier, still with a trace of youthful innocence on his face, but his movements were steady. His assistant gunner beside him was nervously handing him the ammo belt.
Tanaka Ken’s breathing became long and steady, as if he had merged with the ruined building.
He was undisturbed by the groans of his own wounded coming from downstairs, nor did he heed the wound on his face that was still oozing blood.
His index finger was as steady as if welded to the trigger, unmoving.
He was waiting.
Waiting for a chance to snipe the enemy.
Finally, the machine gunner finished setting up. In the instant he raised his head to observe the forward firepower, his head was fully exposed beyond the truck’s cover.
Now!
Tanaka Ken’s index finger pulled back with a terrifyingly steady pressure.
“Bang!”
A muffled yet crisp gunshot rang out, inconspicuous amid the chaotic battlefield.
Yet a hundred and fifty meters away, the young machine gunner’s head snapped back like a watermelon smashed by a sledgehammer, a spray of red-and-white brain matter bursting from the rear edge of his steel helmet. His body slumped softly, motionless.
His assistant gunner beside him stared in horror, then was swept down by a burst of machine gun bullets from the second floor of the building.
Tanaka Ken calmly worked the bolt; a hot cartridge case ejected from the chamber with a “ding,” landing on the dusty floor.
“Well done, Captain!” a young soldier nearby growled excitedly.
“Shut up… conserve ammo!” Tanaka Ken rebuked without turning his head. “The Chinese firepower is fierce. Don’t show yourselves; wait until they get closer to fire!”
He was the backbone of all the Japanese in the building.
Under his command, these over three hundred defeated remnants used the department store’s complex structure and sturdy walls to hold off waves of attacks from several times their number of enemies and tanks.
He did not know that Shaozuka Yoshio and his group were already dead; he only knew his duty was to fight here to the last man. This was the Emperor’s order and the glory of a samurai.
However, just as he prepared to find his next target, he keenly sensed something amiss.
The gunfire from downstairs was gradually sparse.
The Chinese forces, which had been fiercely attacking, began an orderly retreat, disengaging from the firefight line, leaving only a few tanks and a handful of infantry firing harmless harassing shots from afar.
“They’re… retreating?” The young soldier also noticed the anomaly and turned to Tanaka Ken in confusion. “Captain, are the Chinese giving up the attack?”
Tanaka Ken did not answer; he merely furrowed his brows tightly. A strong sense of unease from a veteran’s instinct coiled around his heart like a venomous snake.
At the same time, at a temporary field airfield not too far away.
The F4U Corsair fighter group, having just completed resupply, was neatly arrayed on the runway, with dozens of ground crew preparing for the second sortie.
But this time, the ground crew was loading not conventional high-explosive bombs.
Instead, large, silver-white cylindrical iron cans.
These iron cans had prominent red markings on their noses and simple stabilizing fins on their tails. They were napalm bombs, vicious weapons designed specifically for arson.
Cheng Rufeng stood beside the aircraft, listening to the operations staff officer relaying the orders.
“Command orders: target, western commercial district. Mission: indiscriminate bombing to completely incinerate the area. Repeat, completely incinerate.”
Cheng Rufeng looked at the operations staff officer before him, his face unusually grave; he had just received a report that the Shanxi Militia had suffered over a hundred casualties trying to take that area.
“Understood.” He gave the staff officer a cold smile. “The Commander thinks killing them one by one is too much trouble and plans to open a crematorium directly, packaging them off together.”
“Fine… I like this job.”
He turned to the assembled pilots and shouted loudly: “You all hear that, brothers! Don’t fucking save ammo for the Commander.
Today’s mission isn’t target practice; it’s arson! I want every incendiary bomb in your hands thrown into that commercial district! I want the fire there burning for three days and nights without stopping!”
The pilots let out a chorus of excited howls.
Minutes later, the Corsair squadron’s engines roared deafeningly again. Twelve F4U fighters fully loaded with napalm bombs taxied onto the runway one by one, howling into the blue sky, forming a menacing attack formation heading toward Taiyuan City.
Inside the department store, Tanaka Ken maintained his sniping posture, but the unease in his heart grew stronger.
Through the firing slit, he looked toward the distant sky, where increasingly large black dots appeared against the azure canopy.
“Woo—woo—woo—”
The piercing, soul-chilling scream enveloped the west of Taiyuan City once more.
This was not a single bomb’s dive; it was the symphony of twelve F4U Corsair fighters entering attack runs simultaneously.
The sound was like a horn from hell, filled with omens of doom and destruction.
Inside the department store, Tanaka Ken’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. Through the sniper scope, he clearly saw the planes diving from the sky and the never-before-seen silver-white canisters slung under their bellies.
Those weren’t bombs!
A primal instinct honed on countless edges of life and death screamed wildly in his mind.
He dropped the sniper rifle and bellowed with all his strength—the last and most anguished roar of his military career:
“Take cover… take cover now… this isn’t bombs!”
But it was all too late.
In the cockpit, Cheng Rufeng’s thumb lightly pressed the bomb release button.
“Click.”
The twelve aircraft, at the same instant, dumped over fifty silver-white napalm bombs onto the commercial district below, like monstrous birds laying eggs.
The iron cans did not whistle; they merely tumbled silently through the air in eerie quiet, howling downward.
Tanaka Ken watched helplessly as three cans smashed precisely through the department store’s already damaged roof with dull thuds: “Thud! Thud! Thud!”
The canisters ruptured on impact, spraying viscous, glue-like translucent liquid in all directions with tremendous kinetic energy!
The dozen or so Japanese soldiers on the third floor, along with the furniture and sandbags used as cover, were instantly coated head to toe in the disgusting liquid.
One second of dead silence.
Everyone was stunned by the sudden “glue rain.”
Then, the fuses ignited.
“Whoosh… whoosh whoosh…”
No explosive boom, only a muffled, terrifying roar like a giant beast breathing!
The viscous liquid ignited in an instant!
Orange-red hellfire, belching thick black smoke, swept across the entire third floor at incomprehensible speed! The air’s oxygen seemed instantly depleted, the temperature skyrocketing to over a thousand degrees in a blink!
“Aaaahhhh…”
The inhuman screams lasted only half a second before cutting off.
The soldiers directly splashed by the napalm turned instantly into writhing, twisted torches.
The flames clung like living maggots to their skin and uniforms, burrowing madly into their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears.
Patting or rolling was futile, only spreading the flames faster. Their skin carbonized and peeled under the heat, exposing sizzling, oil-dripping cooked muscle and fat beneath.
Tanaka Ken wasn’t directly hit, but half his body was engulfed by a surging wave of fire. He felt an unimaginable pain as if his soul were being burned through, then his vision became blinding orange-red.
He instinctively opened his mouth to scream, but inhaled only scorching flames and toxic smoke that burned his alveoli. His vocal cords carbonized instantly; his body convulsed in agony, collapsing to the ground, soon covered by more molten-lava-like flames pouring from above.
This hellish scene unfolded simultaneously in every corner of the western commercial district.
Flames rained from the sky, turning streets into burning rivers.
Japanese hiding in buildings and trenches were burned alive in their positions by the all-penetrating liquid fire.
Wooden and earthen structures ignited instantly; rebar melted and twisted in the heat. The entire area became a massive, roaring crematorium in mere dozens of seconds, one way in and no way out.
High in the sky, Cheng Rufeng casually pulled up his plane. He glanced back at his handiwork, a satisfied smile on his face.
From his vantage, the city below looked as if God had smeared a huge swath of orange-red paint with a burning brush. The flames merged into a spectacular sea of fire raging fiercely.
Towering black smoke formed a colossal pillar linking heaven and earth, visible clearly from dozens of kilometers away.
“Pirate One calling Eagle Nest.”
Cheng Rufeng said coldly: “Bombs away. Expect the fire here to burn for a long time. Mission complete, requesting return to base… over.”
